When the Lights Were Dim
by PanHopeNvs
Summary: Bulma investigates the genetics of a saiyan, and her findings surprise her. What is the significance of these lab results for the baby she's carrying? And does Vegeta give a rat's ass?


When the Lights Were Dim

Should be working on Loud Silence, it's the reason I came back.

But writing leads to reading leads to writing leads to thinking leads to inspiration.

With love,

~PanHopeNvs

………………

Her blue hair was coiffed and styled with what must be two cans of hairspray, into a bold and rebellious updo. Her slender body which had driven any number of the world's strongest men mad with desire was draped in an oversized white laboratory coat, and her well-manicured fingers were gloved in white rubber.

She was staring intently through a microscope, waiting for something to happen… something that should be inevitable given the circumstances she had provided…

"NO!" She yelled, letting loose a wild scream of abandon. She picked up the Petri dish and threw it across the room. It smashed on one of the storage cabinets there, spilling the cells it contained all over the cold floor and killing them.

She wasn't satisfied. She wanted to throw more things and scream a bit more, but she knew that all the things near her were crucial to her experiment, and she shouldn't be so careless with the resources. Usually she maintained composure in the lab from years of experience at accomplishing extremely difficult and sometimes impossible tasks. Her father had taught her that she must be calm if she were to overcome the obstacles in the pursuit of science.

But this was personal. Very personal.

"WHAT is your problem, woman?" A tired and angry saiyan prince with his eyes half closed appeared in the laboratory doorway, "I am trying to sleep, it is 4 AM, and you are screaming and making an infernal ruckus! There had better be some reason…"

"You want to know the problem? Your FUCKING SPERM is the problem Vegeta," she had one hand on her hip and the other pointed at him angrily, "Now get the HELL out of my laboratory so I can WORK!"

"My…" Vegeta's face contorted, "Are you experimenting on my cells? How on earth did you get MY SPERM?"

"YOU GAVE IT TO ME! You gave me LOTS and lots of it, or don't you REMEMBER? Over and over and over…" Bulma might have been a banshee the way her eyes flashed in rage and her voice became shrill enough to sear Vegeta's sensitive eardrums, "Now if you don't get OUT of my laboratory right now I swear to Kami and/or Dende that I will grow a FUCKING TAIL and turn into a giant monkey and beat the living shit out of you. I am NOT joking, Vegeta. I am enraged, I am pissed and I AM HORMONAL like you've NEVER seen before!"

She had advanced on him and was now shoving him backwards with her finger. He retreated, with shock and something akin to fear on his face, and left the woman while grunting and muttering. He was a brave warrior who had looked death in the eye many times, but it would be a certain painful excruciating death to mess with _that _woman in _this_ state.

Bulma slammed the door of the laboratory shut so that the whole room shook and marched back to her desk. She took a few deep breaths before allowing her head to collapse in her hands. It shouldn't be possible, but here she was. She allowed her boiling blood to calm before she ripped a glove off her hand and grabbed for the plate of pickles that was sitting near her workstation. She dipped the pickles in peanut butter before shoving them into her mouth and swallowing them almost whole, forgetting to chew. She finished off 8 whole pickles and a jar of peanut butter before stopping for breath.

She didn't seem to be making any progress regarding her research.

All she knew is that it SHOULDN'T work. It shouldn't be possible.

Of course, there was living proof in Gohan—but she hadn't thought much of that. She had known Goku since he was a child and watched him grow up as a human, with human values. Heck, she could remember a time when Goku didn't know the difference between a boy and a girl, and had to regularly feel everyone's genitals to make sure. It wasn't the differences between human and saiyans which intrigued him or even Bulma for that matter back then, but the differences between males and females.

It was this selfsame childish intrigue that had gotten her into trouble.

Vegeta was a surefire alien, of this she was aware. She had been an adult when he had attacked the earth, and she had witnessed his very inhumane attitude on the Planet Namek. However, what had struck her most about him was the princely arrogance and bravado she was foolishly attracted to. She had glimpsed his pain and his depth on occasion and, in short, she who had studied the male species thoroughly in her serial-dating days was absolutely assured of Vegeta's unwavering and impressive _masculinity_.

Now, as a consequence for her weakness in judgment, she found herself ingloriously going through 5 jars of pickles a day, and regurgitating them in the mornings. And her microscope was still telling her that it was impossible.

Quite simply, it was impossible for the saiyan species to conceive with _Homo sapiens_. It was genetically impossible.

Saiyans had four extra chromosomes.

Bulma had reached for the Jack Daniels whiskey, tucked away under her laboratory desk, when she discovered this unsettling information. However, when the bottle was halfway to her lips she remembered the reason she had begun this research in the first place. She had then cursed and used the intercom to ask her mom to bring her some milk.

Biology wasn't her specialty.

She and her dad were physicists. Astrophysicists even, if the situation called for it. But geniuses sometimes needed to take situations into their own hands, and when she had first begun vomiting, fainting, and running high fevers a few weeks ago, she had thought she was dying for sure—probably of that radical new heart virus that Goku had just taken the ONLY antidote in existence for. Of course, it would be just HER luck that Chi-Chi, who had been more exposed to the infected Goku would be fine while Bulma contracted the illness.

Even Vegeta had been concerned enough to get into the family car, with Mr. and Mrs. Briefs in the front, and a deathly pale Bulma lying across his lap, curled up and whimpering in the back seat. It was the first time that he had ever gotten into a car, and probably the last time he ever would. Bulma had been shocked and touched beyond words that he would interrupt his intense Android-preparation-training and get-stronger-than-Kakkarot obsession for a moment to show concern for her illness.

..............................

_"Why is this taking so long?" the saiyan prince asked, alternating between pacing and leaning against the wall of the emergency room waiting area, but maintaining a deep frown. They had been there for hours._

_"I don't know, son. But I know my Bulma, and she's a tough girl. She's going to be alright, you'll see," said the grey-haired old scientist, forcing a smile for Vegeta's sake. He was worried. Bulma was tough; she had gotten sick almost as rarely as her superman-like friend Goku._

_Vegeta's frown only deepened. His saiyan ears heard a loud woman's voice wailing from down the corridor and he took off immediately. Was Bulma going to die?_

_He burst into the examination room to find Bulma sitting upright on a hospital bed with her head in her hands. It was definitely bad news._

_"What's going on?" asked Vegeta gruffly._

_Bulma's mother turned to him, and her face was contorted. Her mouth was set into a little O-shape. She held out her arm and pointed at him, but no sound left her mouth, she was speechless. She only gave a little squeak, which enraged Vegeta beyond recompense. Why was she pointing at him? Had he hurt Bulma the last time they…_

_"WHAT IS GOING ON?" he shouted._

_The doctor in the room did not know that he should have been afraid of Vegeta, and he tried to usher him out, "Excuse me, sir, but you're going to have to leave this room."_

_"I am NOT leaving until I know what's wrong with the woman!" he grabbed the doctor by his throat and held him off the ground._

_Bulma took her face out of her hands and looked up with a mascara-and-tears streaked face, "Vegeta, put the doctor down. I'm fine. Everything's fine."_

_"Do you think I'm an imbecile?" he put the doctor down and he walked over to her, grasping her shoulder non-too-gently, "Why did you scream? Why are you blubbering? Tell me the truth, woman."_

_"I'm pregnant, Vegeta. I'm going to have your baby," Bulma felt the world crashing down around her as she said this. Would Vegeta stay and be a father? Would he disappear? This was Vegeta. He had shown her incredible passion and gentleness when the lights were dim, but she had to be strong and expect the worst from him in the daylight. She had to be ready to raise this child on her own, be ready for abandonment._

_Vegeta's eyes softened. He immediately sensed for the ki, for confirmation, and he felt it. Small, but already just as strong as Bulma's life force. He stared at her, feeling a wave of heat run through his body at the thought that he had created life._

_He had not given this any forethought. He, a mastermind of war, had always been adept at strategizing and planning. But this had been an accident._

_The doctor cleared his throat, rubbing his neck, "Unfortunately, there is bad news too."_

_Both Bulma and Vegeta snapped their heads toward the doctor._

_"There are complications in the pregnancy. I'm sorry to inform you both of this, but we automatically screen all women over the age of 30 for such problems, and the tests came back positive," the doctor cleared his throat again, looking over his chart, "The child is not healthy, and may not even live long enough to be born. Even if it is born, it will not live to be one year old. At this stage you have about month to decide whether you want to keep the pregnancy and deal with all the medical costs and emotional trauma of having a child with serious birth defects. You also have the option of aborting the pregnancy immediately. But you must choose soon."_

_This time, it was Bulma who leapt off the hospital bed and took the doctor by the throat, tears still running down her face, "Listen, you nutcase! My baby is perfectly healthy. In fact, he'll be stronger than you can ever even IMAGINE. So keep your bad advice to yourself. I'm NOT getting an abortion!"_

_With that, she stormed out of the room, followed closely by her mother and Vegeta._

_.............................._

Now she wasn't so sure.

All signs pointed to the very real possibility that a saiyan-human hybrid SHOULD have serious birth defects. All signs except the sample of Gohan's cells that she had studied.

Chromosomes are a vital part of reproduction. The condition of having an unusual number of chromosomes is known as Aneuploidy. Even the presence of an extra copy of a particular chromosome results in a serious birth defect known as Trisomy 21, commonly referred to as Down Syndrome. There are also many other issues—Trisomy 16 is more common than Down Syndrome, but it usually results in the fetuses dying in utero. Trisomy 18 and 13, although rare, cause only 10% of infants who survive the condition to reach one year old.

In short, Bulma was terrified and confused. A birth defect is the last thing any expecting mother wants to hear pronounced in a sentence anywhere near talk of her baby. But this was a rare case, the rarest of rare. The chromosome count in her baby was unnatural for even a baby with a defect.

It was also unnatural for both a human and a saiyan.

It wasn't, however, unnatural compared to some of Gohan's cells. Chromosomal mosaicism was the only explanation. Gohan had some cells in his body which were human, some which were saiyan, and a strange number of cells which were a combination of both.

This, however, should not be possible. It should not be possible for two species which are so far apart in nature and origin to mate. Bulma had tried to create other human embryos with Vegeta's sperm and some egg samples, but it would not work. What manner of rarity and special circumstance had allowed her to become pregnant?

Bulma pulled off her lab coat and gloves and ran out of the room. She continued running out of the house, and kept running. The grass lawn of Capsule Corp was already wet with the morning dew and she felt it on her ankles as she ran. She kept running for several minutes until she was out of breath, and stopped to pant. When she could breathe normally again she surveyed her surroundings and found herself near to the West City Memorial Park. She walked into the thicket of trees, inhaling the fresh smell of the morning, and clearing her mind.

Despite what the doctor had said, and what her own tests said, despite everything that known science said, she had a good feeling. Deep in her heart, she had a powerfully good feeling. She believed with all her being that the baby would be born normal and healthy. She believed that the baby would be more than normal, that he would be as strong and brave a boy as Gohan, the first human-saiyan hybrid to have been born.

Bulma stopped walking and leaned against an old strong oak tree. She looked up at the sky through the branches. An immense wealth of stars was visible in the night sky, the selfsame distant stars which had brought Goku and Vegeta into her life. The stars which gave life to the beings on thousands of planets all over the universe.

What were the chances that she and Vegeta would meet? What millions of random events could have led up to both of them being born, much less both of them, born on planets light-years away, meeting and making love? Any conception was a miracle, of course, but not this one.

This one was a phenomenon.

Bulma held her hand over her growing tummy, and tears came to her eyes as she looked up at the wondrous night sky.

"My little super saiyan," she whispered, closing her eyes and letting the tears fall.

She knew a thing or two about Gods. She had even helped to hand-pick the last Guardian of the Earth. But there must be some power, some amazing and inexplicable higher power that had given her this gift. It was too divine to be an accident.

Here she was, a 33 year old woman with an unnatural thirst for adventure. She had traveled all over the world at a young age, and to distant planets in her adulthood.

Now she was about to partake of the greatest adventure of all: she was about to bring her first child into the world. This concept terrified her more than anything she had ever done before in her life. It terrified her more than the thought of Frieza or the Androids which were coming. Ah, the Androids. A great time to be pregnant too.

But for Frieza there had been Goku… and for the Androids there would be Goku, and Vegeta too. They would help protect her in that way—but who could help her raise her child? Her parents would be there, of course… but would Vegeta? Would her little boy have any knowledge of his father? Chances were, she would have to fight this battle all by herself. Just like Chi-chi had, most of the time. But this—this would be much worse than what Chi-Chi went through. Vegeta was no Goku.

She heard a noise nearby and opened her eyes.

She was surprised to see a familiar figure standing a few feet away from her.

"Vegeta?" she said softly, "What are you doing here?"

"I was afraid that you were going insane, woman. I had to keep an eye on you before you hurt yourself or my child," he approached her and scrutinized her, "Why are you falling asleep on trees in the park like some homeless person?"

She smiled at his humor. He really could be quite clever sometimes. She suddenly realized how tired she was; she hadn't run like that in quite some time. The baby was also taking all the energy she had to spare. She let out a huge yawn.

"Woman, I don't know what insanity is running through your head, but I'm taking you home this instant."

Vegeta promptly lifted Bulma into his arms and took to the sky, flying rather quickly to Capsule Corp. Bulma felt the wind rustle her clothing as he landed, and she relished the sensation of flying with him. She couldn't remember if he had ever done that before. He was treating her extra nicely because of the baby, she knew. And also because it was night and no one could see. He was always kinder to her when the lights were dim.

He did not put her down, but kept walking straight into Capsule Corporation and up the stairs to her bedroom. She leaned against him, thankful for his care. How had he known how tired she was, when even she had not realized it? He was astute and vigilant... not oblivious like Goku. She remembered her earlier thought, and revoked it, feeling shameful for having thought it. _He's no Goku—because he's not just an innocent oblivious bumpkin. He's _my_ man, he's perfect for me. _

He laid her out on the bed, gently. He felt for the ki of his growing child, something he did several times a day, even while training. It was now much stronger than Bulma's life force, and it impressed him more each day. The child had not even taken a breath, and he was already proud. More proud than Bulma or the child would ever know. He stood up and turned to return to his bed, but he was stopped by a hand on his wrist.

"Vegeta," she said, looking at him with those intelligent but vulnerable blue eyes, "Stay with me."

He grunted assent and returned to occupy the bed beside her. Neither of them spoke, but Vegeta encircled his arm around her, his hand coming to rest on her stomach.

She closed her eyes and smiled in absolute contentment. They never said much, but through this simple gesture she understood all of his meaning. He loved her, she felt it, and he was happy about the child. He would be there. He definitely loved her. Maybe.

Emotions had never been her specialty either. She was a physicist.

Regardless, she felt more protected and safe than ever before in her life and allowed the waves of sleepiness to carry her away.

………………

This story has been inspired by my study of Anthropology in University and thinking about how a scientist might approach such an unusual pregnancy. When I first started writing DBZ fanfiction I was 12 years old, and now I'm 22. After a decade, and a lot of growing up and life experiences, I think I can almost imagine what it would be like to be pregnant… something I never could have done when I started writing. Pushing my limits here, and opening doors. Writing = personal growth, always.

Please review! =)


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